Yellow submarine
by CapturetheFinnick
Summary: Dan and Phil build themselves a childhood paradise which slowly falls apart. Phan. Fluff.


It was a sunny day when Dan met Phil.

A day where the sun melted onto the pavement, laying its beams across like a carpet. A day where feet burned as they hit the tarmac but it was preferred to being trapped within small woollen socks and tight leather shoes. A day where the trees swayed and etched patterns into the roads which could be traced with pastel coloured chalks. Balls and rackets littered the streets. A semi-detached world built in the middle of the surrounding semi-detached houses. A world that was required to be packed away when a car came, its horn beeping with a fond sort of delight that came along with the suburban neighbourhood.

The sun beat down on backs that didn't know of labour and of hard work in the fields. A sun that inspired the boredom of children, of coins pressed firmly into grubby hands, _one ice cream only, Sarah, no more than one fifty._ A sun that spoke of picnics by the river, the water glistening, packed with silver fish. Tim swore he had seen one jump once. Tim with his dungarees and white sleeves rolled up.

There were light fairies in the air. Paula said she had caught one once.

That was the language of the children on the street. The stories passed from mouths to ears via cupped hands, strung through the air, each patch attached to an anecdote (not to be confused with an anaconda), _do you remember the time David scaled the pipe into the river bridge, the time Lucy lost her shoe in the wood? The time Laura swore she saw a ghost behind Mr Mac's old shop._

The time. The stories were the tie that held the children together as they slowly melted into the pavements. The settling smell of the setting sun, an indescribable smell, recognisable only to those who were there. Who were there to see moments become legends strung through trees.

Dan was a little too old to still be in the gang, to still feel the water rush over his palms, the snapshot of a silver fish. He had known it when he turned eleven, and again when he was twelve, and now thirteen. The day was coming when the fish would no longer hold his attention. But Dan liked adventure, he liked the messy, homemade ties, the whispers in ears. He liked the pure unadulterated joy of being able to lie upon the pavement, to feel the sun bake into his bones, like a tattoo, a mark; _I was here._

It was Dan who first saw Phil.

The car pulled into the drive. Bright yellow and reminiscent of a primary school song. Of a chanting and a tie.

 _We all live in a yellow submarine.  
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine.  
We all live in a yellow submarine.  
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine._

A memory of the changed lyrics, passed through laughter, slung along the walls they scaled, pressed into the thorned blackberry bushes.

 _We all live in a yellow submarine. We didn't like the colour so we painted it green. We didn't like the colour so we painted it red. We didn't like the colour so we all went to bed._

 _(And bumped our heads)_ (the last bit added by Tim with a small laughter)

The boy emerged from the car and Dan left his bicycle on the ground (it was immediately snapped up by three small children in three small hats). The boy wore canvas orange shorts and a white top with some kind of writing on it.

 _In the town where I was born there lived a man who sailed the sea._

He clutched a book in his hand, torn and battered and Dan thought of all the books stacked upon his shelves, there desperate pages clinging to each other, their covers shiny, as if untouched, as if unperused by his fingers. His hair was the longest Dan had ever seen for a boy. It was far from the _good Christian_ cut that littered the neighbourhood. It swept across his face.

 _And he told us of his life. In the land of submarines._

There was another boy. A few inches taller than Phil, his hair the same chestnut colour but neater, tidier. Dan could see earbuds stretching into his ears. Izzy fell beside him. Eleven. Blonde hair that became almost white in summer, and much darker when soaked with water. Nimble. Dan's main enemy in any water fight and also the closest to his age. His parents sometimes raised their eyebrows when he asked if she could stay over. Because adults liked to ruin everything.

"New guy?"

"Yup."

Dan came to spend a lot of time with Phil. Phil who also liked adventures. Phil who took to the silver fish as if they were old friends. Phil who become co-leader of the gang, tumbling down grass hills and running in bare feet to the swings (only to let one of the smaller ones on when he got there first.)

 _So we sailed up to the sun. Till we found the sea of green._

A tyre swing was built in Phil's first summer, an old tyre found downstream and hurled over by Mark and Susan (twins with freckles and ginger hair). It swung over the river like a bridge, hurtling against the hedges before snapping back. The river glistened below. Green weeds lurking below the blue sparkling surface, bright, brighter still with the reflection of their smiles, the odd glint of silver. When it got warm enough (which was rarely) the children would bring swimming costumes and trunks, letting themselves fall from the tyre into the river with a grace that was not at all collected. On the other days Dan and Phil would bring blankets and towels and little lamps. Sometimes they would even steal hunks of cheese and bread from their parents cupboards (although Phil didn't like cheese something which Dan found incredulous). They were a ragtag and ever changing group. The group from Church Street, letting the sun hit their faces.

 _And we lived beneath the waves. In our yellow submarine._

In the second year Phil started to grow facial hair. Not a lot. Not the grizzly beard of Mr Mac, _only two children in the store at once please!_ But a little, a little shadow across the jaw like the shadow cast by the trees along the bank. That was the year Tim cut his knee on a rock and blood ran down the stream. The year Phil carried him back slung in an old blanket. The year him and Phil reminded Dan of parents. Parents to the ragtag group from Church Street.

 _And all our friends are on board and many more live next door._

Phil strode like the pied piper, the children following in succession like mice. The addition of Layla whose mother waited nervously at the door, watching over her little daughter's bouncing curls, the chalk in her hand. She gradually moved back from the door in the stretching summer months. Dan and Phil (and Isabelle) were responsible. They were _big_ boys with hairs on their legs. Layla liked to sit on Dan's shoulders as they walked through the woods. The frequent gasp of _duck!_ as the branches stretched towards her and the clutching of Dan's hair. Phil's voice stretched through the woods, etching onto the bark of the trees. His voice which was so soft and caring, it curled like the soft bow of the birch tree. _We're all going on a bear hunt._ A child in each hand, Tim with a stick. They were going adventuring. They were after the ghost that Laura saw. They were armed with goods snatched from the kitchens of suburban mothers.

That was a good day.

On the days it rained they liked to pile into a house, flopping across carpets in front of blaring screens, the Wii remotes latching onto hands as they all sung, danced, played sport in the living room. Until someone kicked them out. The shout of _if you don't keep it down._ The shift from house to house. Like a game of hopscotch.

Sometimes they went out in the rain, coloured umbrellas, Tim's like a frog, David's all in black. They hid under the park equipment a special hideout, or sometimes in the crooked shelter at the cricket pitch. Each space filled with Phil's soft voice, ever filled with stories, aided by Dan. Paula found a rock that looked slightly like an owl. Sarah found one like a face. A pile of rocks and a pile of stories.

 _And the band begins to play. We all live in a yellow submarine._

In the third year they started to split. Go further afield. Feel the straw wheat between their fingers. Dan, Phil, Isabelle (and sometimes David on days when his parents weren't mad) separate from Paula, Tim, Laura, Sarah, Lucy. And Layla. Although Dan still had a soft spot for Layla. She would still bring him drawings from school and proudly beam up from behind chalk sketches and blonde curls. The older ragtags and the younger ragtags. One group, different divisions.

Dan was fifteen but he still loved the way the river rushed.

They climbed trees, Phil reaching the highest, his gangling limbs reaching the top branches. A single branch scraped across his jeans. A tear and a splatter of blood. But no need to rush home. _They were big boys now._

Dangling feet over the river ledge and the distant viewing of the tyre swing, burning in the sun. Izzy leant against the main trunk, her head just slightly west of Dan's foot. Everyone expected Dan to marry Izzy and Dan only liked her as a friend. Dan was never interested in anyone. His friends chattered loudly (or mumbled if they were boys), of crushes and dates and kisses and ever growing further lists of e _xperiences._ Experiences that didn't belong in the tree, hanging over the river. There was a sun burn that ran the line of Dan's shirt.

There was a small numbing fear that Dan would never understand that world. _Who would you kiss if you had to_ the whisper through pillow feathers in the night, a piece of popcorn lodged into his spine, the gentle edge of _don't wake my parents up_ and the secret wish that they would. Because Dan didn't know, his world consisted of rivers and trees, he would rather lie in a field with Phil and Izzy and stare at the clouds than kiss anyone. His nails were ingrained with dirt, his skin scarred by the sun.

 _As we live a life of ease (A life of ease)  
Every one of us (Every one of us) has all we need (Has all we need)  
Sky of blue (Sky of blue) and sea of green (Sea of green)  
In our yellow (In our yellow) submarine (Submarine, ha, ha)_

Dan was sixteen when Izzy with her braid that stretched down her back had tried to kiss him, fresh with water from her swim in the river, lilted with sunbeams. And it had felt wrong. It had felt wrong to him and it had felt wrong to her. They never mentioned it again.

David and Paula moved away and Dan cried. Phil took him under his wing like a bird, allowing him to nuzzle into his chest. They went blackberry picking, a basket lined with a cloth, Layla on Dan's shoulders and Tim up in front. Tim was bigger and stronger, the dungarees ditched for shorts and a t-shirt. But it was mostly the same. It was like old times. Layla tugged at his hair and they all lay in the field. _That cloud looks like a dog. And that one's like a fish! That one looks a little bit like Mr Mac. No it doesn't! Look see the moustache?_

In the fifth summer it rained a lot and Dan was stressed. Sixteen had hit him like a ton of bricks and he no longer fit on the tyre swing. Then seventeen had come around, bringing around with it a-levels and windows with locks on the inside. A boy who kept being mistaken for a man, looking outside, surrounded by papers. Layla was approaching nine and was getting too big for his shoulders.

The world he knew was unravelling to reveal one which was far scarier.

He spent his spare time by the river, watching the drops hit it. He wrote angsty music, sometimes poetry.

One night he and Phil and Izzy camped on a field by the old tree. _The old tree is the heart of the town,_ Phil had whispered in summers past, _he who kills it, kills the town. We must protect it, form our own army, are you with me people?_

They spoke of memories like silver fish in the river, sparkling, below the surface. Real or not real? Like a gameshow with no prize, only dirt and sunburn and laughter that bounced off the canvas surface of the tent. Chalk that had faded but not yet washed away. Dan fell asleep with Izzy's braid across his nose, his arms linked behind Phil's back, his feet poking through the tent door.

They had a campfire one evening, for the whole neighbourhood, held on the communal patch of grass (which was cordoned by small stone pillows and connected by chains). There was a regulated amount of marshmallows on sticks and pre-cooked sausages which could be further burnt by the flames. Summer crackled and burned in the air and Layla fell asleep on her mother's lap, a dirty, tired smile written across her lips.

"Thank you, boys." Layla's mother spoke to them and Dan's mother smiled, eyeing how close they were sat together, as if physical stitches held them together as well as emotional.

In Phil's final summer there were tears that watered the grass and joined the stream. The gang of children climbing on their backs (old and newly formed, a little sister for Layla) as they ran down the river (faster than lightening, a plane about to take off, faster, faster). Their bare feet were bigger than the first summer but they hit the water the same, their voices lower but they flew out the same. The post man tipped his hat to them and Phil swung children around as Dan and Izzy skipped arm in arm. Izzy plaited small daisies into the younger children's hair, bright as the summer skin.

One. Two. Three. Race! Bikes rushed down the main street. Dan. Phil. Izzy. Tim. Lucy. Laura. Sarah. Layla. Phil pretended to lose and bought everyone a chocolate bar (Dan had a wispa).

Sometimes Dan and Phil held hands in the firelight. Sometimes Dan and Izzy held hands in the firelight. Sometimes Phil and Izzy held hands in the firelight.

It was a type of love. It was sunburnt, river running, dry tongued, dirty fingernails kind of love. The kind with smiles written out of crackling flames, the kind of entangled hands under tent canvas, and back massages during exams. The kind of love with a secret code which could crackle in the air, two torches on two ledges, _one flash yes, two flashes no._ The kind of love that had a bond, that tied them all together, the sun beams weaving into the raindrops. An unbreakable bond. A forever love. A love to die for. The ragtag group from Church Street.

But not a romantic love. Dan didn't understand romantic love. He understood entangled hands and soft kisses of warm lips salted with dirt. He understood _I'd take a bullet for you,_ he didn't understand the ten minutes of kisses which came after it.

To him it was of a simple nature. It was happiness in a physical form. It was the ties that stretched between them.

The final day was the hardest. The boxes packed into Phil's car, his mother's glasses smeared with tears. A hoodie that boasted _university of Manchester._ They walked down to the river. The three musketeers. The golden trio, their little friends already said goodbye to (Layla with a tear in her eye and a kiss on the cheek). Their feet lingered in the water longer than usual, their backs against the dusty soil, and their eyes to the sky. The clouds that spoke of the future, the light wind that wanted to carry Phil _to greater things._ Greater things that didn't include Dan. That didn't include Izzy. Phil's voice still curled around the trees, still bowed in the shape of the birch.

 _We'll talk on skype_ (which they did)

 _I'll write_ (letters which Dan waited for with impatience every month and relished greatly)

But Dan missed the water rushing over their feet. Dan missed the light fairies that danced around their heads. Dan missed the blanket of stars that draped over them. With Phil gone, the sunburned, tired, gentle, dirt under fingernails and twigs in hair childhood had finally been taken and Dan was forced to move on. _To greater things._

* * *

 ** _This was orginally written for a prompt on tumblr, and I had a lot of fun with it and I actually ended up being pretty proud of it. Thanks for reading and please review!_**


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